We have two technological solutions when it comes to speaker cable:
1. Four wires (2 on + and 2 on -), twisted in a star quad, in a screened braid and in one collective insulation. 2. Second solution: two SEPARATE double-wire cables, one for + and one for -, but without shield.
The number of cores, core cross-section, material, weave, both in NES-3003-G and NES-3005-G everything is the same.
In the first solution we have a screen, and in the second solution we have a separation of plus and minus.
what speaker cable brand and model would you recommend for such comparison?
I would be looking for a cable with the same or more cross-section, same length or shorter, but with more separation between the conductors. Trying to keep the resistance similar!
Straight or very slightly twisted. For me, it would be whatever I could borrow from my HIFi dealer!
Not looking for a forever cable, just one with less capacitance and inductance to see what the sonic effects are. Sorry I cannot be more specific. You reported hearing very clear differences with your cable grounded and free floating so just trust your ear/brain system!
I think the cables you are listening to have high capacitance and high inductance compared with more physically open, more neutral cables on the market.
Bear in mind that your speakers (all speakers) have impedances which vary with frequency, sometimes quite dramatically. Adding ideal cables with no capacitance or inductance, but different resistances, will skew the frequency response of the speakers. Of course, no real-world cable is free from capacitance or inductance.
I wrote earlier that
Highly inductive and capacitive speaker cables will alter the tonal balance of your speakers but only you can judge if you think it is for the better or worse
I would suggest you beg, borrow or otherwise obtain a more conventional pair of cables just to compare ...
PS. In many ways, the ideal cable is no cable and I think this partly explains the performance of well executed active speakers
The result of twisting or braiding and shielding insulated conductors reduces inductance and increases capacitance
Really? Take a straight wire. It has self-inductance caused by the magnetic flux created as current flows. Now twist the wire into a spiral. Keep twisting it until it becomes a coil in shape. The self-inductance increases enormously because the magnetic flux now interacts with many loops of the wire. Stick a bit of iron in the middle of the coil and you have built half a transformer, or linear power supply as it has been re-badged.
Complete the transformer by adding a second coil. Do you really think it will work better if the separation is increased?
The electromagnetic force decreases as the inverse square of distance and governs both capacitance and inductance
I have made extensive comparisions of my NES-3003 MKII speaker cable with screen connected to the outboard ground pin and screen left not connected.
I must say that the the diferences in sound are quite pronounced.
Without screen connected bass is very pronounced, too much for my taste. Bass predominate and is out of proportions. Without screen connected sound is more free and open, the things sounds fuller with a bit longer decays.
With the screen connected the bass is shorter and better controlled. Is more balanced now hovewer decays seems to be shorter. There is more clarity in the whole spectrum, notes are better separated with more black background.
As a reminder, I currently have an NES-3003 MKII, where two wires are connected as "+" and the other two as "-" and gives aggregated gauge 10.5 AWG (6 mm2) per leg.
I am considering upgrading to the newer version of Neotech speaker cables with grefen used, and considering that the NES-3005 in dual runs and the NES-3003 have practically the same cross-sections gauge, the same insulation, and probably the same wire structure, my original question seems reasonable and justified.
From the arguments presented in the discussion so far, it follows that:
1. The wires twisted close together (NES-3003) have greater capacitance, but this capacitance is rather negligible for audio applications if kept at reasonable level,
2. The screen in the speaker cable is rather negligible, due to the high level of the audio signal and lack of exposure to extensive EMI and RFI - this points prefers double run of NES-3005,
3. Air is a better insulator than PVC, so physically moving the "+" and "-" wires apart will provide better insulation between the two wires (this prefers double run of NES-3005),
4. As for the inductance between the two parallel wires, I am not sure whether it is greater when the strands are spread apart or greater when the strands are twisted together. This pint is not clue for me.
From my experiments so far, I have found that when I have separate wires, the "+" and "-" wires, I prefer the sound of the wires that are a few centimeters apart than the ones that are twisted together.
I think that it is obvious, but not for everyone as I can see…
Far too many posters make far too many assumptions about what is obvious.
What is obvious to me is that the two cables you are comparing are very different from most speaker cables.
In general, the closer together conductors are, the more the capacitive and inductive coupling between them. The dielectric insulation between them also matters, and air is a good dielectric - far better than PVC.
Shielding also increases capacitance and is normally there to minimise Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) and Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). I note that very high speed digital transmission often uses unshielded twisted pairs, on the basis that whatever affects one wire, is cancelled by an equal and opposite effect on the other wire.
The tightly packed and tightly twisted speaker cables you are comparing would seem at face value to emphasis reduction of EMI and RFI. While this may be important for very low voltage signals like phono connections, and possibly for line-level interconnects, I cannot see the hefty power being delivered to speakers being affected by EMI, let alone RFI.
Highly inductive and capacitive speaker cables will alter the tonal balance of your speakers but only you can judge if you think it is for the better or worse.
We have two technological solutions when it comes to speaker cable
Your opening statement ignores the hundreds of speaker cable designs on the market. If you want us to hypothetically compare just two designs from the one company, best say so!
@squared80Well, there's no equipment listed in your profile so I guess we can only assume you speak from experience.
"Solutions? Solutions to what? Increasing margins for snake oil companies? This cable won't be any better than a coat hanger. I guarantee you would never know the difference in a blind test."
Solutions? Solutions to what? Increasing margins for snake oil companies? This cable won't be any better than a coat hanger. I guarantee you would never know the difference in a blind test.
BTW, since there was a mention elsewhere about the 'time stamps' on posts being weird....
I got 2 @mitch2's responses that repeated your above as a 'mention' 8x each, one with 2, and 2 labeled "Soeaker cables technologic dilema…" with 2 each as well....
*WTH?!* Hey, I'm admittedly old, perhaps ADD, ADHD, both, or subject to something due to an abhorrent lifestyle.....or A'gon has developed a really bad case of digital hiccups ( CD 'skips' comes to mind....I have one that does....Truth)...
@mitch2 That was my thought, although I'd neglected to state such...
Not 'into' SOTA cables or speaker lines, due to their rather elevated price points and a plethora of IC's and lines in my system.
Spending more on such than what's been spent on the equipment itself here seems a stretch of logic...
Something pending on that Lotto win that's avoiding me at present. ;)
@mitch2 I was thinking about separate runs (no bi wire) just to separate „+” run and „-„ run and lower interference of any kind between these two wires.
Do you think that noise cancelation from twisting wires is wort to run them very close one to each other?
@milimetr- Not clear if you are talking about a double run of the 3005 in a bi-wire configuration where one pair goes to the MF/HF posts and one pair to the LF posts, or two separate runs with both wires inside of one jacket going to one polarity (i.e., + or -).
The only reason I would do a double run as described above would be to bring a larger wire gauge to the LF posts in a bi-wire configuration since connecting both wires in one jacket to a single pole would result in losing all the noise cancelling benefits of having twisted wires.
@asvjerry- As discussed on the Supra Cable site, the screen shield in a speaker cable would most effectively be grounded to the amplifier chassis, or maybe to a univeral ground box. The negative pole at the amplifier would be a last choice. From Supra Cables:
Earth/Screen connection. The earth conductor should be connected in the source end only (amplifier side) to:
I curently have 3003 MKII with silver plated wires and I am aware of new generation of graphene. The original question is for conclusion if in next step I should go for double run on NES-3005G or coross connected NES-3003G.
BTW, the Neotech NES-3003G cable you pictured is not the same as the NES-3003 Mk II you reference in your most recent post, so be careful to understand which you are purchasing. The pictured NES-3003G does not use silver plated OCC wire, it uses G-upocc graphene copper in a different winding configuration than the Mk II version. I would personally go for the newer G version as I find silver-plated copper can display a touch of sibilance IMHO.
From Generative AI:
"Neotech’s G-UPOCC (Graphene-Ultra Pure Oligo Crystalline Copper) refers to a type of high-purity copper conductor that is combined with graphene. This composite material is designed to improve electrical signal transmission and stability, particularly at high temperatures and voltages."
To the question posed by @curiousjim- the optimal method to construct the NES-3003G cable would be to cross-connect the two wires opposite each other to feed a single pole (i.e., 2 wires oposite each other are connected together and go to + and the other 2 wires opposite each other go to -). As in the NES-3005G cable, the individual wire gauge is 13awg per single wire. When you double the same gauge wire, you jump three gauges lower (i.e., the lower the gauge the larger the area). So, in the NES-3003G, they are considering the construction will include connecting two 13 awg wires together to equal one 10 awg conductor, which is the specified wire gauge they list for NES-3003G.
The NES3004 with 8 wires looks interesting to me. By cross-connecting four wires (i.e., the blacks together and the reds together) you get an aggregate 11 awg cable. However, I don't care for the PVC insulation on any of them. If you go a model up to the NES-3002G, you get polypropylene insulation, which is just behind my favorite, polyethylene. BTW, the 3002 wire is almost the exact construction of Harmonic Technology Pro 9 speaker cable.
@unsoundI guess if there is no sonic impacts, you are likely very right in suggesting getting the zobel included: can't hurt and never have to worry about what amp it's hooked to. I'm using a full refurb Hoppes Brain Adcom GFA 555 Dual Mono. 6' is also well under the 10' concerning length from Alpha...but if for what ever reason I want to sell, would be best to have.
@amtprod, You might wan to use the Goertz alpha-core RC-Networks (zobels) attached to the speaker terminals regardless, as there is no sound reason not to, and the potential protection might keep your amplifer from frying. Especially recommended for use with wide-bandwidth amplifiers.
@mitch2I still have a browser tab open from Apha Core Goertz speaker ....ribbons? Cables? Wires?! I don't know why but of all the speaker hook up wires, these intrigue me the most. My runs are only 6' max so I wouldn't need a Zobel, and my amp has one on the output anyway.
@mitch2, @milimetr I appreciate your thoughtful responses to my post. I currently use a 30-foot pair of Kimber Kable 12TC which recently replaced a 30-foot pair of 8PR that I purchased in 2009. The 8PR had a total capacitance of 2547pf for each 30-foot run whereas the 12TC's is around 4400pf. In either case I've not experienced a situation where these values have had any meaningful impact on the sound quality or the electrical performance of any amp, I connected with them. Including low power single ended tube or tube AB and certainly not any AB solid state amp I've used regardless of power rating. I can attest I've played around with lots of them since 2009.
"You could argue that lower inductance is a good thing and capacitance doesn't matter anyway."
Yes, in speaker cables, low induction and resistance are desirable and capacitance matters little until it becomes so high as to affect amplifier stability. That is why Alpha Core Goertz used to offer Zobel Networks with their speaker cables when they were going to be used over a length of 10Ft or with OTL amps.
Regarding geometry, the cross-connected star-quad will have lower inductance than the twisted pair, but either should work fine from that perspective. The cross-connected star-quad should also have lower resistance due to the larger aggregate gauge of wire. I would not recommend using the star-quad cable as an internally bi-wired cable. I would use two separate runs of cable if bi-wiring, regardless of which form of the cable you choose.,
Regarding screening or shielding, one example of a company that uses it for home audio speaker cables is Supra Cables from Sweden. Here is the datasheet for their top speaker cable. This explains that the shield pigtail is to be connected to a ground terminal on the amplifier, or maybe a screw in the metal amplifier casing. They do NOT recommended connecting it to the minus speaker wire terminal. The purpose of the shield is to "provide an additional path for electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency (RF) interference (RFI) to dissipate, potentially reducing hum or buzz."
"A shielded speaker cable? I've never seen such a thing in a home installation. To what would the shield be grounded?"
Seems reasonable to me. So, I'll add that any kind of shielding increases capacitance and reduces inductance. Then there are these by In- Akustik where they engineer their cable to use air as the electrolytic and avoid the capacitance that's created when insulated conductors are twisted together or braided as in some speaker wire configurations. You could argue that lower inductance is a good thing and capacitance doesn't matter anyway.
Sorry but I started this thread not to educate about shielding.
You mentioned shielded speaker cables, so it seems reasonable to ask: To what is the shield connected? What would be the advantage of an unconnected shield?
... to give you a clue shielded cables makes for example Synergistic Research ...
It isn't clear just what that is or where the shield would be attached, so I can't answer your question of "what to expect" from its use. Perhaps others here will be able to assist you.
Sorry but I started this thread not to educate about shielding.
But to give you a clue shielded cables makes for example Synergistic Research,
If you have something interesting to say in main topic, please do so.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
